There’s a fellow on Twitter who somehow came across my path, claiming that the Japanese are playing victim regarding the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima. This moves me to want to offer a refuter for those who encounter such idiocy. It’s probably not complete – feel free to tell me what to add.
Japanese Cities were Militarized
Claim: Japan had distributed war production throughout the civilian population; manufacture of things such as aviators’ suits, and even munitions, was done in people’s homes. Therefore, it was impossible to distinguish a military target from civilian targets, and it was justified to destroy entire cities.
Response: Japan had distributed war production into the civilian population as a morale effort. Ever since World War I, the kind of military production that is decisive on the battlefield is industrialized and mechanized: what matters are the steel mills, ship ways, aviation factories, munitions dumps, and oil refineries. What mattered were tanks, bombs, machine guns, torpedoes, ships, submarines – none of which were anything that anyone could produce from their home. During the strategic bombing campaign against Germany, bomber command also attacked things like machine and weapons plants, oil refineries, steel refineries – not just cities full of civilians.
There was a major Japanese naval base, Kure, which is right outside of Hiroshima. It was a military target, yet ground zero – which Tibbetts hit exactly – was in the center of a city full of civilians.
The Japanese Were Not Going to Surrender
Claim: The Japanese were going to fight to the death, many allied soldiers would have died in a land invasion.
Response: The Japanese were trying to surrender, a month before the bombs were dropped. Prior to the Potsdam Declaration (July 26) the “big six” – the leaders of the Japanese military regime – were making back-channel entreaties to Stalin to mediate a surrender. Instead of diplomacy, the allies issued the Potsdam Declaration calling for unconditional surrender with the alternative being “prompt and utter destruction.” Truman already knew about the bomb and the July 16 test at Trinity, two weeks before. In fact, the Little Boy bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima left Hunters Point Naval Yard in California and arrived at the air base on Tinian on July 26.
It seems reasonable to believe that the Japanese would have surrendered in a normal national/military surrender had the allies not insisted on unconditional surrender.
Hundreds of Thousands of Allied Troops Would Have Died
Claim: The Japanese were fortifying against an island-hopping style invasion and would have killed a great number of allied troops.
Response: The Japanese were, indeed, preparing to defend the mainland. Both the Japanese and the allied commanders had identified the most likely landing site for an assault on Tokyo was through the Kanto plain, and the Japanese had approximately 14 divisions of troops deploying and building defenses in that area, when the war ended. Those troops were a valid military target. The allied war-planners could have used the two nuclear weapons on the defenders of the Kanto plain. Instead, they dropped uniquely valuable military assets on strategically useless targets. One can only observe that the allied commanders didn’t appear to care much for the lives of their men, since they were leaving a significant military force standing, which would have put up quite a fight – in order to kill cities full of civilians.
There were large Japanese military contingents pinned in Manchuria, which were about to be attacked by the Red Army. They were also a valuable military target, which was ignored in favor of killing cities full of civilians.
The Japanese Used Chemical and Biological Warfare, Therefore, They Deserved It. See Also: Nanking
Claim: The Imperial Japanese army was a horrible bunch of bastards who carried out all sorts of atrocities. Therefore, they deserved it.
Response: Perhaps the Japanese army deserved horrible destruction, but the civilian population of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Tokyo, too, for that matter) do not become military targets because of the actions of “their” military. In fact, the Japanese military was out of the control of the Japanese population at the time; that’s what a “military dictatorship” is.
The Japanese people were suffering from “out of control government” and some supported it, while others did not. Using area weapons on cities kills people who wish to surrender and become your allies just as effectively as it kills hostiles. It’s not only immoral, it’s bad strategy.
Nobody is saying that the Japanese did not commit atrocities and that they did not deserve to face the victors’ justice, as the Nazis did at Nuremberg. Ultimately, this argument is “two wrongs don’t make a right.” And, really, they don’t.
PS – The US has also used chemical and biological warfare. Do we deserve nuclear weapons on Boston?
The Entire Japanese Population Was Involved
Claim: Because the Japanese were so fanatically supportive of the war, the entire population shared some guilt for the actions of the Japanese military. Therefore it was acceptable to wage war on the entire Japanese population.
Response: US taxpayers and civilians fanatically supported the US wars of aggression in Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Panama, and Grenada. Are you saying that, because the US population uses about 16% of the taxes its citizens contribute to prosecute these wars that it would be justified for someone to use a nuclear weapon on Boston? The US killed around 2 million people in Vietnam and Cambodia – and the US citizens paid for it, built the weapons, made money off it, and otherwise supported the military – fair’s fair, right?
Of course the idea of dropping a nuclear weapon on Boston in return for what the US did in Vietnam is absurd. But then, so is dropping a nuclear weapon on Hiroshima for what another group of Japanese did in Nanking. I am not arguing that nations should not be held to account for their crimes – quite the opposite – but justice cannot be accomplished through collective punishment. It is the leaders of nations that bear the primary responsibility for the policy decisions they enact – especially wars of aggression.
If a bully punches your sister, you are not morally justified to punch the bully’s sister. You are morally justified to call the bully to account (though I believe that trading punches doesn’t accomplish anything useful).
Japanese troops at Nanking, US troops in Vietnam. Same as it ever was.
War Is Awful; These Things Happen
Claim: War is always awful and lots of people get hurt and killed. So, somehow, what happened to the Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki is just part of the awfulness of war and they ought to stop complaining about it.
Response: That’d be like saying that the US should have just calmed down and not gotten so bent out of shape about the 9/11 attacks; bad things happen, you know?
The US and Americans in general have developed an attitude that is predicated on the fact that the US homeland has never been bombed. The US has never had mass attacks against its civilians (unless you were one of the Indigenous Peoples, who were genocided by the US Government and American colonists) – since being bombed or genocided is not part of American cultural experience, we appear to have forgotten how unpleasant it is. Americans would do well to remind themselves that many Americans wound up in North America in order to avoid Europe’s horrific wars of religion, or the horrors of World War I and II. Anyone who tries to shrug off war as being “always awful” is demonstrating how thoughtless or uneducated they are.
If you believe “these things just happen” you should ask yourself how much choice political leaders have to negotiate instead of starting wars. The reality is that these things don’t “just happen” – they happen for political convenience, laziness, or geopolitical gain. You would probably not appreciate it if everything you value and everyone you love was destroyed and some asshole on the internet shrugged and said “shit happens.”
Americans have become remarkably cavalier about shrugging off the consequences of American war. But those wars have consequences. Most Americans do not know, for example, that Osama Bin Laden considered the 9/11 attacks to be part of a declared war on the US, based on a declaration published in 1996. Part of the reasons he gave for his declaration of war was the consequences of other US military actions. In other words, he did not just shrug off American wars. It is important to remember that wars and war crimes create long memories – the US is very fortunate that the Japanese have accepted having two of their cities incinerated in nuclear fire for pretty flimsy reasons. Not everyone is so forgiving and we should not assume that everyone will simply shrug off our actions because we tell them to.
They Don’t Value Life Like We Do
Claim: The Japanese culture at the time was dominated by a nihilistic death-cult form of Buddhism called “nichiren” that encouraged them to die fearlessly in service of the emperor. They wanted to die. Dropping nuclear weapons on a city full of Japanese was fulfilling their wish to die.
Response: Perhaps some of the citizens of Hiroshima were willing and happy to die, but the vast majority were not, as you can tell from their struggle to survive in the aftermath of the bombing.
More importantly, you may wish to check your understanding of ethical behavior. The question of whether the US was committing a war crime when it bombed cities full of Japanese civilians is a question of whether the US’ actions were moral and has nothing to do with what the Japanese civilians believed or wanted, at the time. In fact, the US choice to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki rather obviously removed the choice of how to die from those Japanese civilians – regardless of their beliefs or or desires.
Lastly, it’s probably not true that the Japanese value life any more or less than anyone else. There is often a big difference between people’s public ideology and their personal behavior. One can just as easily describe all christians as “a death cult that believes you’re better off dead so you can enjoy an afterlife” and argue that all christians want to die soon. Dehumanizing one’s enemy in war is a necessary technique for getting soldiers and supporting civilians comfortable with committing atrocities. You may want to go look in a mirror and think about what you’re saying next time.
But My Daddy/Granddaddy Might Have Died Attacking Japan If The Bombs Hadn’t Been Used!
Claim: I probably would not have been born at all, because my ancestor might have died if the US had done a sea-borne invasion of Japan. So, I am glad they used the nuclear weapons and ended the war when they did.
Response: If your ancestor had died, it probably would have been as much the result of a bad command decision on the part of his government’s highest-level military strategists. Japan was trying to surrender, had no navy, no air force, and its army was being wiped out in Manchuria by the Red Army. The Japanese knew it was over (that’s why they were trying to surrender) and the allies could have simply waited and blockaded Japan as long as it took.
In other words, there was no need for a land invasion, at all – and if your ancestor had died in one, it would have been his commanding officers throwing his life away uselessly. That’s how war works.
PS – I’m glad your daddy/granddady survived and you’re here, it’s been my pleasure trying to educate you.
[photo moved from above] I originally illustrated my point about Kure harbor using this image, which turns out to be a photomontage. It still does not change the fact that there were military facilities very near Hiroshima, which would have been legitimate and possibly militarily valuable targets. Or, alternatively, the Japanese troops preparing to defend the Kanto south of Tokyo. They would have been just as effective a “demonstration” of the new lethal device.
Even without the initial attempt to surrender, a simple “technial” demonstration of might have sufficed: Use a nuclear bomb to obliterate an atoll or island (uninhabited ideally) in view of the Japanese, or even just detonate one off the coast of Japan. Sure, nuclear bombs are difficult to make but the US had two to spare for cities, so there would have been at least one spare after the demonstration. And nobody witnessing an enemy “waste” ordinance like by their home shores would conclude that it must have been the only one of its kind and therefore no cause for concern. (It would be daring bluff to call – or make.)
Do the Japanese “spend an inordinate amount of time claiming a sort of victim status”? Not that I’ve ever noticed, but then again I don’t tend to talk to Japanese people very much. However, I know someone who does. My brother’s wife is Japanese. From Hiroshima no less. He has dozens of Japanese friends and acquaintances. He works for a Japanese company, as a translator and interpreter, talking to the Japanese every day. In Japanese. He lived in Tokyo for two years, Osaka for one and Hiroshima for one. So I asked him. He’s never heard the subject come up in conversation among the Japanese at all. In fact, the general mentality seems to be that it was a horrible thing a long time ago, can we just let it be and not cause any fuss or ill-feeling. The classic Confucian desire to avoid awkwardness or social discord.
I suppose if you spend an inordinate amount of your own time on the internet trying to defend horrible war crimes to their victims then yes, they might get a bit prickly about it. But that says rather more about our interlocutor here than it does about the Japanese.
cartomancer@#2:
Do the Japanese “spend an inordinate amount of time claiming a sort of victim status”? Not that I’ve ever noticed, but then again I don’t tend to talk to Japanese people very much.
Not that I have noticed, either. There are some Japanese that have spoken out against the use of nuclear weapons, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable for them to do so.
In fact, the general mentality seems to be that it was a horrible thing a long time ago, can we just let it be and not cause any fuss or ill-feeling. The classic Confucian desire to avoid awkwardness or social discord.
It must be scary for anyone to exist on the planet with the US Empire.
(The Japanese are more shinto than confucian, though Japanese flavors of Zen are similar to Taoist. During the post-war reconstruction, Douglas MacArthur instituted a program of de-shintoization and christianization – he was a paid in full member of the christian nihilist death-cult)
komarov@#1:
Even without the initial attempt to surrender, a simple “technial” demonstration of might have sufficed: Use a nuclear bomb to obliterate an atoll or island (uninhabited ideally) in view of the Japanese, or even just detonate one off the coast of Japan.
They could have detonated one over the Japanese forces in the Kanto. It would have made the point “you are helpless” – which had already been made so thoroughly that the Japanese were trying to surrender.
I included the time-line of the bomb’s movements because I believe it ought to be obvious that the US had determined to use it no matter what the Japanese did or said.
Marcus,
these arguments are great, I wish I had some of those facts to hand when I’ve argued with pro-nukers in the past.
I do have a question tho, I’m wondering about that picture of the Battleship Yamato – according to Wikipedia she was sunk on 7 April 1945 and still lies on the bottom, so the picture is from before that date. On the bottom of the picture, just right of the building at the center, is what appears to be a satellite dish. Radar was being developed and used in many places during the war, but I don’t think they were using solid parabolic reflectors at the time. Japan’s radio distance finding system used dipole arrays. I’m not calling the picture fake, it’s obviously not a satellite dish but I’m curious what the object could be. Any ideas?
I just found a picture of the first solid parabolic antenna used in radio astronomy, it was built in 1937 so maybe that’s it.???
Wellllll, it is Boston…
Marcus, as to your point of expending valuable assets on civilian targets, I believe the US had a production line of plutonium bombs up and running with a steady supply of nuclear weapons in the pipeline. Little Boy used up 90% of the Allies uranium supply, but there was sufficient plutonium to make more plutonium weapons. There were plans to expend them all on other targets, some military, in the eventuality that Japan did not capitulate. None of that refutes what you’re saying. Quite the opposite.
Tabby, seriously. It is Boston, amirite?
Raucous Indignation@#7:
There were plans to expend them all on other targets, some military, in the eventuality that Japan did not capitulate.
That is correct. There was a military plan for “Operation Downfall” which was a massive Normandy-style landing that was expected to result in huge casualties. It’s pretty clear that the US’ military leaders allowed the planning for that to go forward, perhaps as a head-feint. They already knew that a nuclear weapons pipeline was up and running, and that’s what Truman meant by “prompt and utter destruction.” US war-leaders were going to genocide Japan if they didn’t surrender.
Tabby, seriously. It is Boston, amirite?
I just used it as an example; moral people cannot support anything that would make Boston traffic worse.
Raucous: what you say is true. However, there would have been a gap of (IIRC) about a month before the next bomb was going to be ready. After that the pipeline would have puked out a new bomb every week or so.
According to Rhodes’ Making Of the Atomic Bomb, there was a target selection committee that came up with a list of possible targets. Some of the factors considered were that it should be largely undamaged by conventional bombing (and potential targets were deliberately exempted from further bombing once identified), that it be large enough so the result of the bombing could be assessed, and that it be a “military” site. Hiroshima was in fact considered a military target because it was home to a major naval headquarters. It may not be coincidental that it was there that the plans for the Pearl Harbor attack were made.
I suspect the Kone base was “too small” to allow damage assessment, and (probably) had already been plastered by conventional bombing. I don’t know whether things like the troop concentrations opposing invasion were even considered as nuclear targets. Maybe that would only be done if Japan did not capitulate.
It was all pretty cold-blooded by that point in the war. LeMay was obliterating most of Japan’s major cities in relentless conventional bombing attacks. That’s the main reason Little Boy wasn’t used on Tokyo — it was already mostly ashes.
Dwight Eisenhower: “…it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”
[Same source:] Just a few weeks after the bombing, the famous “hawk” who led the Twenty-First Bomber Command, Major General Curtis E. LeMay, stated publicly that “The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb… the atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.”
sillybill@#5:
it’s obviously not a satellite dish but I’m curious what the object could be. Any ideas?
The ham radio operators’ hive-mind believes it is an anti-aircraft radar system.
@sillybill
Pretty sure that is just a bright spot on the photo, just like the smaller dot by the exhaust plume and the vertical stripe on the left side of the photo. Why would anyone place a radar or non-satellite communication ‘dish’ on the ground immediately beside a large steel/concrete building and surrounded by two steel towers/cranes?
MattP (must mock his crappy brain)@#13:
Someone at Deviantart pasted together multiple images from the Yamato’s exiting port:
https://121199.deviantart.com/art/The-only-footage-of-the-Yamato-GIF-555843897
In the animated sequence you can clearly see that it’s not a problem with the film.
One of the worst insults socialists have is to call a comrade a ‘tankie’ which is one who justifies the horrors of Stalin or Mao. It amazes me that the standard garden variety American patriot is the moral equivalent of a tankie, just for the other side.
So, definitely something more than a film artifact (e.g., various transient stripes in the animation that are not degradation from GIF compression) or lens defect (e.g., numerous constantly present bright spots, stripes, and bright region near the bottom that does travel over the ‘dish’), but I cannot think of anyone remotely competent placing a fixed radar system that close to the ground surrounded by that much clutter. Even as part of an AA installation not requiring a wide field of view or long range because it is directing fire at aircraft almost directly above the port, there would absolutely be many better locations for a radar dish to be installed.
You should add “they don’t value life like we do”: a terrifyingly common imperialist trope that says that those uncivilised brutes don’t really value their own lives that much, so we have to kill huge numbers of them to make an impression.
Dunc@#17:
Good suggestion. Will do.
I guess I’ll go with the hive mind, there must be a director assembly behind it to move the dish wherever it’s needed. I learned electronics fixing shipboard missile guidance radars so it just jumped out at me. I don’t know enough about foreign radar history I guess. Thx.
OK, The Yamato picture is a fake.
The parabolic dish is a modern dish. Everything in the picture (except the Yamato) is from sometime between 2014 and 2016.
I went to google earth to find Kure. The only island I saw was a small one which seemed to correspond to the one in the background of the harbour. Sighting a straight line in the photo from the island RHS to the tip of the land area with the cranes gives a sighting line, more or less to the dish. Extending a straight line from those two points in google earth dropped me straight onto a farm of parabolic dishes (which surprised me a little and made me highly suspicious). Further poking around showed that the two big towers were “still” there (nearly 80 years later, c’mon) as was the smaller tower just to the left of the bigger one. The cranes on the far headland I sighted from are “still” there too and the pier which doesn’t quite reach the shore.
A little more poking around and using the Google Earth timeline, the actual dish I believe is one on top of a building (building just below shot, but that also answers the clutter question) which was only built around 2014 and there is now a new blue roofed building between the two radio towers which doesn’t appear in the photo and which was built around 2016.
The building rooves in the extreme foreground (middle and RH corner of the picture) are the Hiroshima Kenritsu Kuremiyahara High School and I think the photo/footage was taken from the top of the hill 500m to the east of them (which is a hundred and a few metres above sea level, the school is about 40m ASL)
Looking more carefully at the picture there are a few more anachronisms too.
@ 3 Marcus
It must be scary for anyone to exist on the planet with the US Empire.
It is.
@ 6Tabby Lavalamp
Wellllll, it isBoston…
True but still! I would not even wish such a thing on Toronto even if Doug Ford was home.
oh crap, what have I started?
SWK – why would anyone fake a pic of the Yamato?
OK, i just spent way too much time looking at WW2 pics of Kure, the Yamato, then google maps satellite view and a 360 view of ‘Seto Inland Sea’ (I don’t have google earth so I go to google maps satellite view – hold button on the Japanese writing superimposed on the blue line coming out of Niko river, release and there is a link to the 360 view). The towers and some of the buildings match up to modern world, as does the pier wall that surrounds part of Niko River.
The cranes visible in the pic by the small island/big rock in the harbor are there in the modern world. I’m not sure what to think.
I can’t find any historical pics of the harbor in ww2 that shows that specific area in any detail. The tower in the center has discs on the top right, which match up to the microwave relay antennas that show up in modern pics. I dunno, it’s a mystery.
There was a movie made in Japan in 2005? about the Yamato, maybe it’s somehow associated with the making of that movie.
Also too: Space Battleship Yamato 2199!!!!!!!
Marcus, I apologize for dragging your comment section down a rabbit hole.
sillybill@#23:
Marcus, I apologize for dragging your comment section down a rabbit hole.
It’s not your fault.
But it leaves an opportunity for someone to argue I was being dishonest posting what I thought was a photo of a legitimate military target near Hiroshima.
I’m also a bit baffled why anyone did that, though they did a good job.
“They were not going to surrender” and “the entire population was involved”.
Funny how we take this as heroic resolve when it was uttered by that colonialist butcher Winston Churchill: “We shall fight on the beaches…And in the streets”.
Oh there were plenty of ships in Kure harbor besides the Yamato, I watched lots of old movies this morning, some gun camera footage, more from after war when they reviewed the damage caused during the airraids on Kure naval base in late July 45. Sunken ships in shallow water all over the place. There is a battle page in Wikipedia.
The picture is strange. I found it in several locations on the web. I don’t think anyone can accuse you of fakery. I think something to do with that movie makes the most sense and it was just categorized strangely or mislabeled, mistranslated by teh googul after someone in Japan posted it somewhere. ?
Thanks SWK.
mvdwege@#25:
Funny how we take this as heroic resolve when it was uttered by that colonialist butcher Winston Churchill: “We shall fight on the beaches…And in the streets”.
Very good point. Churchill might as well have said “I will fight to the last drop of your blood, Britons!”
“I will fight?” Really? You see, politicians, well, they don’t exactly fight. They just scream orders and force others to fight for them. I would say: “I will make you fight to the last drop of your blood, Britons!”
Ieva Skrebele@#28:
You see, politicians, well, they don’t exactly fight. They just scream orders and force others to fight for them. I would say: “I will make you fight to the last drop of your blood, Britons!”
Well, the Britons don’t appreciate life the way we do. They like to die. (sings “men of Harlech”) (no, wait, that’s wrong: sings “the foggy dew”) (no, wait…)
Churchill, we now know, spent the blitz in a deep bunker. The person who was observed walking though the subways (still not above ground!) was an actor impersonating Churchill to give the citizens a morale boost.
Dunc@#17:
Added a section on valuing life. That was a great suggestion; I hope I did it justice.
I had to google for these songs, as I hadn’t heard of them before. This got me thinking about Latvian war songs. I mean the old folksongs, those that existed before the 20th century.
Some examples:
– Begging kings not to start any wars again: “Kings, please, don’t start a war, because I don’t want to go to one.”
– Sorrows of mothers whose sons have died: “The son goes to war; his mother sits on the porch waiting for him to return home. Years go by, mother grows old, still she sits on the porch waiting.”
– Attempts to avoid draft: “King ordered me to go to war, now I’m searching for money in order to pay the commutation fee. Father, please, sell the horse; mother, please, sell the cow; my bride, please, sell your dress. (The song ends with the bride selling her dress, and he gets to stay at home. Significantly more impoverished. . .)”
– Going to war sucks—“At home young ladies make a soft bed for me and prepare delicious meals; at war you sleep on hard ground and eat bad food.”
– Having to leave family members: “I was foolish, I married young. Then a war started and my wife was left alone.”
– Not being able to return home for several decades: “I went to war, and I left my child in a cradle; I returned—the child was already grown up.”
Among Latvian folksongs, there are no songs about defending the homeland. There are no songs about military glory either. All the songs are about human suffering, pain, death, misery. That makes sense, because, until the 20th century, all Latvian speaking people were peasants. They had no homeland to defend—after all, for a peasant it makes no difference, which king gets to own his land and collect taxes—all the kings sucked, no one was better than others. Also, there was no military glory for peasants, who were simply the cannon fodder. Latvian peasants must have perceived wars as a pointless slaughter. It was only during the 20th century that people finally started writing patriotic war songs in Latvian language.
Of course. Where else could he have spent it.
By the way, I recently accidentally found out that Donald Trump was a draft dodger during the Vietnam War. Theoretically, I perceive draft dodging as a noble thing to do and I applaud it. But, damn, when a warmongering politician turns out to have been a draft dodger . . .
Marcus@#27,
While I agree with the image you bring up of Churchill being belligerent from the safety of his bunker, I actually wanted to stress the implied racism in ‘Oriental fanaticism’ vs. ‘plucky British Resolve’.
Marcus, @ #30: Yeah, I’d say you did fine.
Oh, and Churchill was very concerned about the Blitz… One morning after a particularly severe night’s bombing, he personally called his cigar merchant to check that his personal supply was safe. (Allegedly.)
I think a demonstration would have done wonders. No need to hit any target at all.
This reminds me of a great novel series that I recently read, The Salvation War.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheSalvationWar
The story may appear at first glance to be war-porn, and it is, but the author also explicitly wrote it to be an anti-war tract, saying that he described all of the horrible and gruesome aspects in full detail, just to show how absolutely horrible war is.
Context: The story is taking the Biblical story of Armageddon at face value, and trying to determine what would actually happen, and concluding that the modern human militiaries of the world would utterly curb-stomp the invading demonic army. The quote that I’m providing is from the perspective of a demon general named Abigor, and his reaction to learning about nuclear weapons.
I think sometimes we take for granted that nuclear weapons exist, and we fail to appreciate just how utterly horrifying they really are, and especially just how utterly horrifying nuclear weapons would be to anyone who didn’t know about, (including the demon general Abigor).
I think the following quote really drives home – for me at least – just how utterly terrifying human militaries how, and then how utterly terrifying nuclear bombs are on top of that. When a demon general is completely terrified, that should tell you something. Imagine how the Japanese felt after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I can only imagine.
Apologies for the super-long quote. Cut it down Marcus if you want. The bit about nuclear weapons is at the end.
http://www.tboverse.us/HPCAFORUM/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=8347&sid=8d024b88c3fa9ce0e22f40602bbb058e
Ieva Skrebele@#31:
Among Latvian folksongs, there are no songs about defending the homeland. There are no songs about military glory either. All the songs are about human suffering, pain, death, misery. That makes sense, because, until the 20th century, all Latvian speaking people were peasants. They had no homeland to defend—after all, for a peasant it makes no difference, which king gets to own his land and collect taxes—all the kings sucked, no one was better than others. Also, there was no military glory for peasants, who were simply the cannon fodder. Latvian peasants must have perceived wars as a pointless slaughter.
You Latvians seem to be a sensible lot, about that, at least.
(The battle songs I suggested were anti-English; I was being silly. I probably should have included “Johnny Cope” too. There are a lot of ‘we rebelled against the English and got slaughtered” songs.)
(Of course there’s “Barrett’s Privateers” which is about English getting slaughtered by Americans…)
EnlightenmentLiberal@#35:
I think the following quote really drives home – for me at least – just how utterly terrifying human militaries how, and then how utterly terrifying nuclear bombs are on top of that.
I have read some detailed descriptions of Ivy Mike and Castle Bravo, by people who were there – and, of course, many descriptions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That’s why I am so anti-nuclear. Kruschev’s words: “the living will envy the dead” is poetry.
There was something I read where someone said “if I believed god existed, I’d say we should go after it with nuclear weapons” and I realized that god’s pretty puny compared to an H-bomb. H-bombs unmake things, even – temporarily – atoms.
That looks like a pretty good story. (James Blish did a series called Black Easter that also features human armies invading hell… Spoiler: Satan concludes that humans are worse than demons.)
mvdwege@#32:
I actually wanted to stress the implied racism in ‘Oriental fanaticism’ vs. ‘plucky British Resolve’.
I caught that.
Why didn’t I comment directly on it? I’m afraid I failed my Privilege Check (I rolled an ’01’!) and fell back on “white guy doesn’t want to talk about racism right now because tired of awkwardness.”
You are right, of course. There is solid evidence that part of the reason why the Japanese became militarily aggressive is because they realized that they were – in spite of handing Russia it’s ass – never going to be taken seriously by the European powers because of race. There was a tremendous amount of racialized mockery of the Japanese, from 1900 onward. There is also a book which is very interesting The Imperial Cruise James Bradley (I am not sure if it’s a fair spin on history) that argues that the US did not negotiate effectively or fairly with Japan because of its horrible racism, which is why the US began blocking Japanese access to oil and raw materials, which triggered the Japanese attack. It seems a fair argument – the US material blockade on Japan was severe – the Japanese were resorting to wood-burning cars and aggressively recycling anything metallic they could get their hands on that was not a sword.
Once the war started, of course Americans really felt free to express their racism, including throwing Americans of Japanese descent into prison camps, and other shameful things.
If you want to ruin your appetite you can read a bit (just google around) about how Douglas MacArthur ran Japan when he was the military consul who had autocratic control over the country. He was a christian death cultist, and attempted cultural genocide of that beautiful and fascinating (and cruel) civilization. Akio Morita’s autobiography Made in Japan is a really interesting look into what it was like growing up post-war Japanese. Spoiler: Americans were horrible to Morita until he became insanely wealthy and then they all bent over to smooch his ring.
To Marcus
I really love the story. Written by someone professing to be a professional (or former) military analyst, and I love how the story takes it seriously, and to my untrained eye, quite straightforwardedly as to what would actually happen.
I fell in love with the story because of the following moment from one of the first chapters. In it, men in black (i.e. CIA or something) show up at the door of James Randi, and say something like the following, paraphrased: “We know heaven and hell are real. We already killed a few of their messengers. It looks like we’re going to war. We know absolutely nothing about them. We need information, right now. We don’t know if human psychics are real, but if they are, maybe they could tell us something useful. We need to find those real human psychics, if they exist. You, James Randi, are the world’s foremost expert on determining who is and is not a real psychic. You’re conscripted. You’re coming with us.”
And IMO that is exactly how it would go down and how it should go down. For comparison, whenever I give examples of what would convince me that a god exists, it’s generally something of the form of the god submitting its abilities to scientific analysis of the best scientists in the world and under the observation and examination of the best magicians in the world. Magicians have a different skillset that scientists do not, and they’re an integral part of determining whether there is fraud, fakery, or forgery going on.
Marcus@#38,
Thought so, just wanted to stress it explicitly.
For me this is so obvious that it almost does not bear commenting on, and yet there are plenty of people who seem to see Churchill’s “We shall fight…” speech or Goebbels’ “Wollt Ihr den Totalen Krieg?” as something different to the Japanese dedication to fight for their homeland.
And yes, these people bridle when you point out to them that the only visible difference is the fact that the Japanese are not White Europeans.
I know I’m late to the party, but…
No, the artist, going by “121199” but named Nathan Wilson, created the animation. It’s a decent Photoshopping, but the Yamato has no wake whatsoever, which is a huge clue. The artist’s response to the May 3, 2016 comment says it all, really. But another commenter says, “Astonishing. Now people will believe she existed,” and the artist responds, “Indeed.” Still another commenter points out the animation even has the logo for the game “World of Warships” in the upper-left corner.
There was no need for anyone to go beyond that DeviantArt page to figure out it was a fake. If you look at the “More from 121199” on the right-hand side of the page, you’ll see the artist had a real love of the Yamato, making all sorts of images and animations featuring that ship (he’s since moved on to other huge boats, judging by his gallery). Which really explains why someone did that. No need to be baffled.
Dave W@#41:
If you look at the “More from 121199” on the right-hand side of the page, you’ll see the artist had a real love of the Yamato, making all sorts of images and animations featuring that ship (he’s since moved on to other huge boats, judging by his gallery). Which really explains why someone did that. No need to be baffled.
Thanks for the explanation. Now unbaffled!
Glad to be of service!
I’m curious, though: where did the still image you used come from? It looks like the “World of Warships” logo has been cropped out of it.
Dave W@#43:
I’m curious, though: where did the still image you used come from?
Google image search for “Kure naval base WWII”
On the “Japanese Cities Were Militarized” point:
Have you seen Alex Wellerstein’s hypothesis that “there is good reason to think that Truman did not understand that Hiroshima was a city with a military base in it, and not merely some kind of military installation”?
http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2018/01/19/purely-military-target/
call me mark@#45:
I’ll check that out. It looks interesting. Thank you.
Offhand, I suspect Truman didn’t care. Anyone who cared wouldn’t have put that butcher Le May in charge of bomber command.
Marcus@44:
Google image search for “Kure naval base WWII”
Wow, I don’t think I’ve ever hit a dead-end so quickly on a “where did this come from” hunt. Just some person on Pinterest claiming it’s a photo of the Yamato leaving port for the last time. Huh.
But now I blame you for the half hour of my life I just lost by flipping through photos of Lego Yamatos.